Kitchen Range Hood Ideas: Stylish Ventilation Hoods

This stainless-steel chimney-style hood is designed for ceiling installation over an island cooktop. Updraft ventilation hoods may be ducted to the outdoors through the roof or the side of the house, but if that isn't possible in your home, you'll need to purchase a nonducted kit that recirculates the filtered air into the kitchen.

To ensure the ventilation hood can do its job of filtering grease, smoke, and cooking odors, match the blower capacity to the energy output of your range. In general, you need a minimum of 100 cfm (cubic feet per minute) for every 10,000 Btu your gas range produces or every 10 inches of width of an electric cooktop.

Installed over an island cooktop, this stainless-steel hood features angled filters for drawing cooking odors and gases out of the air and lights along the edges to illuminate the work area. Angled filters can offer more surface for capturing smoke and grease.

A decorative wood cover custom-built to match the cabinetry blends this modern, high-power exhaust hood seamlessly into its vintage-look setting. If you opt for a custom hood cover, shop for the hood insert just as you would for a ventilation hood, choosing the size appropriate for your cooktop. A standard four-burner gas or electric range requires a blower that can move a minimum of 300 cfm, but a 30-inch professional- or commercial-style cooktop requires at least 750 cfm.

A frieze created by casting market vegetables in marine-grade resin turns this wall-mount ventilation hood into a focal point for the vintage-style kitchen. Decorative wood vent covers like this are fitted with inserts that contain the filters and blower. Depending on the size of the hood cover, you may need a metal liner as well.

The paneled sides of this wall-mount ventilation hood match the traditional style of the cabinet doors and drawer fronts, blending the hood into the cabinetry. Deep plaster cornices extend the line of the range hood and cabinetry onto the ceiling, making the ceiling seem higher.

Professional-grade appliances call for heavy-duty ventilation hoods. This wall-mount canopy-style hood has a streamlined look that would suit a contemporary kitchen but also recalls the seamed metal roof of a barn, making it a good choice for a country-style kitchen as well.

A stainless-steel Eurostyle range hood is a popular choice for any style kitchen. Along with proper blower capacity, ventilation hoods are rated for noise level using a measurement called a sone. In an open kitchen-dining area, you'll want a quiet vent system (less than 9 sones) so the fan doesn't interfere with conversation.

A stainless-steel oven and backsplash call for a stainless-steel ventilation hood. The industrial materials bring a cool, modern look to a room wrapped in warm maple cabinetry, marble countertops, and stone-tile floors.

This custom-built canopy-style hood features the same crown molding and pecan-color finish as the perimeter cabinetry; beaded-board panels give the hood a distinctive look. Built to form a tentlike crown for the entire cooking niche, the hood encompasses counter space and cabinets as well as the cooktop. The fan and filters, designed as an insert, fit snugly within a liner inside the decorative cover.

This custom hood with a stainless-steel backsplash and warming shelf recalls a restaurant-style hood. It conceals a blower powerful enough to serve the professional-style range below. Stainless steel is a contemporary material, but the riveted straps and edging on this range hood suggest the lid of an old trunk, giving it a form that marries well with the mostly traditional kitchen.

This stainless-steel chimney-style island hood offers clean geometry that reinforces the lines of the contemporary glass-top island. The hood appears as little more than a strip of sleek metal at the base of the chunky flue.

This decorative hood is constructed of plywood covered with plaster above a deep base covered with a mix of molded ceramic tiles. A liner insert with the filters, fan, and motor fits inside the cover. This kind of hood makes a major style statement in the kitchen and is easy to customize with your choice of decorative tiles.

One of the most common installations for ventilation hoods is mounted to the wall under a bank of cabinets. Although it's best for hoods to be vented to the outdoors, if the location of your kitchen makes this difficult, you can adapt the hood with a nonducted kit that will recirculate the filtered air. Here, the stainless-steel shelf below the hood is used for display, but it can also serve as a warming shelf.